Tahini Honey Cake - (An Almost Failure)

Tahini/Tehina/Sesame sauce is such a modern ingredient nowadays, generously used in various sweet and savory combinations, not only for the classical salad. It has a heavy dense texture and adds an aromated note of originality to any meal, especially a cake. And I am not talking only about halwa.

However, it seems that in my case things take longer as expected when it comes to success in the kitchen. A couple of weeks ago, I tried my own variant of tahini cake, which didn't came together well. Maybe because it was too much oil and too much tahini, and something was so wrong that even after 2 hours the entire composition was still in a liquid form.

But I am not someone to give up too fast, therefore, on the occasion of the Jewish High Holidays, besides my classical honey cake, I wanted to improve the initial tahini cake recipe and adapt it for the usual list of ingredients served on this occasion. The result was much better, although it did not look very good for the picture - the upper side went a bit burned as I had to keep it in the oven for over an hour. However, it baked well and had a deep nutty honey taste. Most probably, a third time will even better - at least visually - but until then I am happy to share this successful attempt.

Ingredients

- 2 1/2 cups white flour

- 19 gr. baking powder

- 1/2 teaspoon salt

- 1 cup white sugar

- 75 ml. honey

- 3 medium-sized eggs

- 100 ml. tahini

- 2/3 cup cold milk

- 1 teaspoon grounded cardamom

- 100 gr. butter for the pan

Directions

Preheat oven at 250 C. Grease the pan with butter.

Add the ingredients, one by one, first the sold one, followed by the liquid, while mixing well every time. Pour the content into the pan. Wait a couple of minutes and then bake it in the oven. 

To be served morning, with the hot coffee, or as a companion to the afternoon tea.

Preparation time: 20 minutes

Baking time: Over 1 hour. It depends a lot of the kind of oven you have, but generally, one hour is the minimum time requested for achieving a proper baked texture

Serves: 9

Bon Appétit!

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My Honey Cake for Rosh Hashana

I was not sure if this year I will prepare a honey cake, so I rather left everything for the last hours before the Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year. As for the meals we were invited to friends in both days, the chances to use my recipe from the previous years was minimal. However, as usually happens, my friend where we were invited for the second evening had too much on her sleeves and asked to bring some honey cake. With only a couple of hours left, I tried to be as fast as possible, but also to bring something new to the table. I wanted something new, with a traditional twist, and spicy - but not cinnamon kind of spicy. 

So, here we go, for a recipe which can be easily done any time during the autumn winter months too, served with in the company of a big mug of chocolate or jasmin tea. Not too sweet, not too moist, aromated and fresh for almost 5 more days after baking - if you hide it well from hungry intruders. 

Ingredients

- 1 cup unsweetened/Turkish coffee

- 3 cups flour

- 15 gr. baking powder

- 1/2 cup brown sugar

- 1 cup honey

- 1/4 teaspoon salt

- 3 medium-sized eggs, beaten

- 1/2 teaspoon star anise, powder

- 2 tablespoon cocoa dissolved in 1 cup warm water

Directions

Preheat the oven at 250, at least 10 minutes before starting the baking. Add baking paper to the pan. Add the ingredients, one by one, and mix well until blending. Pour the content into the baking pan(s). Leave it in the oven for at least 1 hour.

Preparation time

20 minutes

Baking time

1h-1h.20

Serves

2 batches of tasty honey cake, enough for at two slices for each of the 10 hungry people.

Bon Appétit! and Shana Tova!

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